Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Is Arvind Kejriwal anti-democratic?

Indian politicians got the chance of their life yesterday (28th Feb.) to lambast Arvind Kejriwal of team Anna for not exercising his voting right. The omission was interpreted as Kejriwal's flagrant disregard for democratic processes which per se disqualified him from critiquing politicians.

What an argument! Our prime minister who hails from Assam for the limited purpose of becoming a member of the Rajya Sabha is known to have desisted from voting in many elections. Does this make him anti-democratic?

Faulting a person for not voting is an admission that we are not able to question him for any graver lapse. It is regrettable that TV channels exaggerated the incident beyond sensible proportions. One hopes that people like Kejriwal will not be cowed down whatever be the provocations from unethical politicians.

The omniscient Congress leader Digvijay Singh has questioned Kejriwal's probity in the light of this incident. How lucky we are to have such enlightened leaders ! George Oewell's 1984 is in full play in our country.